Gothic Granola

...Without moving to a tropical climate.  I live in the Rocky Mountains at 9,000 feet above sea level and I like living here.  Even when it's 13 degrees Fahrenheit outside during the day and especially when it's snowing.  [caption id="attachment_5333" align="aligncenter" width="287"] Wanna go for a swim?[/caption]

It's time for another round of Into It/Over It , the High Altitude Edition.  The point of this type of post is to point out a negative and replace it with a positive (and sometimes just point out positives).  What does a picture of this awesome-yet-undisclosed location have to do with Gothic anything?  If you have ever read any Gothic literature ( Frankenstein ,  The Castle of Otranto ,  Carmilla ,  Dracula , et cetera), they can be read as travel journals, with significant chunks of text devoted to describing landscapes and characters' travels.  I re-read  Carmilla  on a weekend's camping trip, and the descriptions of Styria (region in modern-day Austria and Slovenia) reminded me of the critical angle of Gothic literature as travel journals.

For those times when you don't want to spend $4.99 (and up) for vegan mac and cheeze from a box, DIY.

Ordering at Chinese Restaurants when you're Gluten-Free Pro Tip: Order the dish you desire without soy sauce or any sauce at all (steamed, you're even safer.) Do a little research, figure out how the dish is made. Understanding how certain dishes are prepared helps you understand possible sources of gluten-containing products. Finally, if you don't care about cooking, heaven help you if you're gluten-free. Or Maybe Not The continual availability of new gluten-free products hasn't ceased to amaze me. People with actual Coeliac disease make up less than 1% of the US population , yet the GF foods market is valued at >$10.5 billion (in 2013) . Since I pinpointed my gluten sensitivity in May 2011, I went from barely being able to find sorghum flour at ShopRite to being able to buy GF (and vegan) bread at Trader Joe's, Whole Foods (duh), Sprouts, and Safeway.

National Chocolate Chip Day is another one of those made-up holidays that must have been made just for bloggers. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's been around since before the Internet since most sites about it seem to reference the original chocolate chip cookie . NCCD is 15 May, and my post is a day late. I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road on Thursday (the other day I usually blog) and didn't decide what to bake for NCCD until yesterday afternoon.

  Here's an article I saw this week about the dearth of Omega-3's and overabundance of Omega-6's in the American diet. Hence, we have more than double the linoleic acid in our body fat as do our parents' generation, and fatty acid turnover in adipose tissue can take years. So you may feel the health effects of your diet from the past year or two, even if you switch to a healthier diet. Besides the importance of supplementing with Omega-3's ( preferably eating Omega-3 rich foods before turning to supplements), the point about the "delay" in your healthier habits taking hold reinforces the idea that you just have to give things time. The body doesn't repair itself overnight. Major health changes through behaviour change are not easy, and the rewards don't come quickly, but they will pay off with consistent effort over time. How about some Omega-3 Powerhouse Muffins?

Because we are Gothic Granola, we go to concerts for Goth, Industrial, Synthpop, Alternative, Electronic, and more, as the entertainment budget allows. That's a royal "we." On Tuesday we went to see Covenant at Casselman's in Denver, hosted by Club Sanctuary . We rode on sportbike to Denver, and having seen few practical posts for wearing makeup under a full-face helmet, I decided to experiment. As I said in this post , I don't wear makeup often and I don't think it adds anything to my appearance. Most message boards I read for female riders focused on the hair, and I happen to like helmet hair (I also have short hair and a low-maintenance deathhawk, so there's not much to "ruin"). 

Being GF is not a diet. It's a lifestyle. It's sometimes not a choice ( id est , coeliac, IBS, leaky gut, intolerances, allergies). A recent NY Times article by Kim Severson pointed out how life as a GF diner is becoming somewhat easier.  I do and don't understand why someone would become gluten-free just to try it. After initially losing weight due to losing an entire food substance from one's diet, being GF (or being vegan, for that matter) is no guarantee of weight control/maintenance. This dog is GF because he has food allergies.

Being GF is not a diet. It's a lifestyle. It's sometimes not a choice ( id est , coeliac, IBS, leaky gut, intolerances, allergies). A recent NY Times article by Kim Severson pointed out how life as a GF diner is becoming somewhat easier.  I do and don't understand why someone would become gluten-free just to try it. After initially losing weight due to losing an entire food substance from one's diet, being GF (or being vegan, for that matter) is no guarantee of weight control/maintenance. This dog is GF because he has food allergies.

This blog post is dedicated to the awesome blog that is no more, "Option Pitch and Waffle Crisp" and its intrepid author.

And not over it all the blessed time. 

Continuing on the theme of last Saturday's post , I realise since March I have patronized quite a few restaurants in the DMV area. Sometimes I was on dates, or artist's dates, or out with friends or family. As I pointed out last week, there is a difference in being veg*n or gluten-free by choice or by force. What do your vegan and gluten-free date's eating habits say about her bedroom habits?

This being the month of January, it’s time I took stock of a few things.  Some people (who are not related to me) have been incredibly good to me in the past few weeks whom I’d like to recognize.